It’s far from an accident that you’re addicted to chips—or soda or pre-made lunch packs or probably any other processed-food you can think of, explains a very un-sugar-coated New York Times Magazine investigative piece set to hit stands this weekend.

In “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food,” previewed online now and adapted from his forthcoming book “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us,” Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Michael Moss delves deep into the long history of how snack food and beverage makers scheme with a mix of science, willful ignorance, and masterful marketing to sell mountains of their salty, sugary products.

“What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort—taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles—to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive,” writes Moss, adding that he talked with more than 300 current or former employees of the processed-food industry, “from scientists to marketers to C.E.O.’s.”

Among the high-blood-pressure inducing revelations in Moss’s 14-page online story, presented in a series of case studies, are:

•Kraft Lunchables pre-packed lunches, loaded with sugar and sodium, and bringing in nearly $1 billion for Oscar Meyer over the years, were financially backed by Philip Morris when they were created and marketed to harried moms in the 1980s. Though they’ve been criticized for being unhealthy to children, “Well, that’s what the consumer wants, and we’re not putting a gun to their head to eat it,” admits Geoffrey Bible, former CEO of Philip Morris. “That’s what they want. If we give them less, they’ll buy less, and the competitor will get our market. So you’re sort of trapped.”

•Monica Drane, daughter of Lunchables creator Bob Drane (who was tapped by Oscar Meyer in the 1980s) and a mother of three kids ages 10, 14 and 17, is not a consumer of the product. “I don’t think my kids have ever eaten a Lunchable,” she says. “They know they exist and that Grandpa Bob invented them. But we eat very healthfully.”

•The early Lunchables campaign targeted mothers, who might have been too busy to make a lunch, "but they loved their kids enough to offer them this prepackaged gift." But a new marketing strategy in 1999 said, essentially, that kids are in charge of lunches, not parents. “All day, you gotta do what they say,” said the ads, shown during Saturday-morning cartoon time. “But lunchtime is all yours.”

•After the late ’80s, when Frito-Lay—the nearly $3-billion-a-year manufacturer of Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos and Fritos—took a financial hit because of reports that salty snacks led to cardiovascular disease, researchers went into overdrive to churn out new, addictive hits. In their Dallas complex, “nearly 500 chemists, psychologists and technicians conducted research that cost up to $30 million a year, and the science corps focused intense amounts of resources on questions of crunch, mouth feel and aroma for each of these items,” Moss writes. “Their tools included a $40,000 device that simulated a chewing mouth to test and perfect the chips, discovering things like the perfect break point: people like a chip that snaps with about four pounds of pressure per square inch.”

•One of the most genius Frito-Lay products, according to food scientist Steven Witherly, is the puffed Cheeto. That’s because of its beloved ability to melt in one’s mouth. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly told Moss. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it . . . you can just keep eating it forever.”

•Robert I-San Lin, chief scientist for Frito-Lay from 1974 to 1982, told Moss he tried in vain to get the company to make its products healthier during his tenure, and regrets how much time the company has spent trying to sell its snack foods to the public. "In his view," Moss wrote, "three decades had been lost, time that he and a lot of other smart scientists could have spent searching for ways to ease the addiction to salt, sugar and fat." He added, "I couldn’t do much about it. I feel so sorry for the public."

•Coca-Cola, under fire from anti-obesity campaigns and other health initiatives in the late ’90s, began aggressively marketing its sugary drink to poor, vulnerable areas, Moss writes, “like New Orleans — where people were drinking twice as much Coke as the national average — or Rome, Ga., where the per capita intake was nearly three Cokes a day.”

•Coke also targeted Brazil and its ultra-poor favelas, by repackaging the soft drink into smaller, more affordable bottles. On one trip to Brazil, Jeffrey Dunn, then-president and chief operating officer in both North and South America, had a realization, he told Moss. “A voice in my head says, ‘These people need a lot of things, but they don’t need a Coke.’ I almost threw up.” He tried steering the company in a more health-conscious direction, but was fired. In recent years, Dunn’s worked to market carrots as a snack. “I’m paying my karmic debt,” he explained.

There are other culprits, too, naturally. We have a nutrient-based approach to healthy eating which causes us to become hyperfocused on a single variable. How many low fat and fat free foods are there in the grocery store? How many people paid a few cents extra for low fat peanut butter filled with hydrogenated oils because it was healthier for them than regular peanut butter? Right up until it wasn't, and we realized that partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats) are worse for you than regular fat. So now we have "no trans fat" foods. As new research comes out focusing on a new thing (omega-3 fatty acids, anyone?) producers can modify a recipe and keep raking in the money as people flock to the nutrient du jour they're supposed to eat more of or less of to be "healthy."

Ironically, by being focused on individual nutrients rather than synergistic and cumulative effects of our whole diet we've managed to do none of the things that all of these fat-free foods were supposed to do for us - make us healthier. We're fatter now than ever._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

The four major population centers of oregon are all really hugely into healthful eating. A lot of veganism, vegetarianism, HFCS hate, gluten free eating.

That "is it local" skit from portlandia isn't entirely a joke.

As someone whose mother is a celiac (and who may discover themselves to be one eventually as well), I do not entirely comprehend voluntary gluten-free-ness. Gluten is what makes things *tasty*. And totally gluten free diet=No beer (for the most part), no chocolate chip cookies, no 'normal' pizza, and, heck, a lot of things that you'd think *wouldn't have gluten* become hard as frick to find because wheat and such is often used as a filler. (A lot of soy sauce, for instance, is not gluten free...)

Not that I *mind*, as the fad (Which I fear it may be) does make it easier for my mother to find gluten free options._________________"No, but evil is still being --Is having reason-- Being reasonable! Mousie understands? Is always being reason. Is punishing world for not being... Like in head. Is always reason. World should be different, is reason."
-Ed, from Digger

you didn't let me finish, i meant Oregon is not feeding their children unhealthy foods.

no need to get all huffy puffy

Sorry if i came across as that. I realize my generally hostile demeanor can cause confusion in others as to when im being huffy but i really wasnt.

Just commenting.

Edit: My bar has gluten free bun options, and gluten free beer. Much like soy based foods, people have gotten better at making it not taste entirely like ass. Though I suspect the market for such is better here than elsewhere in the country._________________

I know someone who went vegan recently and I could not think of a way to say 'but you look like you're dying' that wouldn't be totally offensive. I mean, I don't want to be mean so I just didn't say anything.

It isn't even that I have anything against people choosing to be vegan, it's just holy shit we do NOT have enough healthy options to live that lifestyle here. You can literally tell someone is vegan in this state by looking at them. They are always extra pale and kind of frail looking with big bags under their eyes.

I dunno, maybe it's just a coincidence in the few local vegan's I've met and I shouldn't judge.

I can't imagine having to put that much thought into what I eat though. Having to be gluten-free or vegan or any of those other super strict diets would be a really hard change for me._________________Samsally the GrayAce

Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9702Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 12:36 am Post subject:

I have heard many arguments for vegetarianism that I can respect (not necessarily agree but respect). I have never heard a reason for veganism I can respect.

Also I found this article very interesting._________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

I can't imagine having to put that much thought into what I eat though. Having to be gluten-free or vegan or any of those other super strict diets would be a really hard change for me.

I couldn't do it.

I'm SUPER sensitive to cinnamon. I've never had an allergy test but i suspect I'm allergic to it in a non life threatening fashion. It makes me have sneezing fits when i smell it, irritates my lips and gums when it comes into direct contact, and eating something with a lot of cinnamon in it gives me near incapacitating heartburn.

All that said, Its not like im gonna give up spanish coffees and bear claws and mole and brown sugar/cinnamon pop tarts. What am I a monk?_________________

Well...spanish coffees include 151 and coffee liqueur and triple sec too...so...not just cinnamon.

Light the 151, sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg into it to make all the college girls oooh and ahhh at the sparks that shoot up in a dark bar, top with kaluha and triple sec, then coffee, then a heavy cream float with more cinnamon and nutmeg._________________